The menu
BellyLT...suckling pig belly, waterkist heirloom tomato, arugula
Trifecta...ahi tartare, blood orange hamachi, peruvian ceviche
Corn Ravioli...sweet corn, summer squash, king crab tail
Mero Seabass...Hawaiian seabass, organic vegetables
Wagyu tenderloin...farm potato, porcini, agro dolce
Chocolate tasting...coriander, hazelnut, absinthe, malt, sorbet
Here are a few shots from last night's dinner. Chef isn't camera shy by any means but even after working with him for six years I find it odd to stick a camera in his face, especially while we're working. Pictures of food ok though, don't know how that works but whatever.
Here is the Mero bass from hawaii, clean flavor and one of few fish that have been recognized as sustainable from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, apparently these guys are the authority on fish and wheather or not they are sustainable. The mero is on sunchoke puree, surrounded by fiddleheads, baby purple artichokes that had been olive oil poached, ramps, morels, braised baby fennel, and baby golden beets. I love this plate, you can enjoy the fish with a little bit of everything.
The hamachi was flown in fresh from Japan. We have used the fillets that have been super chilled on the boat before processing and shipping but they aren't even close to this. I cryovac'd the fillets with blood orange juice and meyer lemon olive oil. Fleur de sel and a little fresh kumquat juice finished the vinaigrette once the fish was removed from the bag. Insane flavor and the blood oranges were sweet, not bitter. The fish was perfumed all the way throughout.
Corn Ravs, we agar'd some corn silk then built our ravs around the gel, let the cook and delicious liquid corn cream inside. These were by far the best ravioli I have ever had or made. It was just the right time for the corn, perfect sweetness.
Here is the completed dish, grilled corn, favas, spinach, tiger eye summer squash, ravs, butter poached crab tails, mache. We also spiked the corn succotash with some chile flake, it balanced everything out nicely.
I never understood the whole 'sustainability' thing in relation to seabass. The main reason at first was because the population had become so depleted. Then all of a sudden, this 'sustainable' seabass hits the market, yet the fish is still blacklisted. So how does that work? Either the entire population is in danger or it isn't... how can there be 2 ways about it? I understand if it signifies that this one company practices sustainable methods, but is that alone enough? There is still a long way to go before the numbers catch up to what they previously were.
ReplyDeleteThe food looks great as always, Chris. I don't normally go for pasta shots, but when I see yours it makes me hungry... mainly because I know how seriously you guys take it and how good the stuff is. Hope TE was pleased.
I don't know if we will wver be able to say that anything is 100% sustainable. In some way shape or form no matter what we do the harvesting of one product will effect the ecosystem it is within. It's a hard topic to put a grasp on with the term being thrown around very loosely. From what I was told the mero is in such abundant numbers in the Hawaiian waters that what is being harvested has less of an impact on the ecosystem since we are not basically removing the whole species from the area at once. At some point yes it will be over fished and then I'm sure they'll find another fish to put in its place. It's a cycle and not a good one.
ReplyDeleteTE was good, cracking jokes and working on new menu ideas.